A Lutheran church to grow faith and spirituality in Briarcliff, Bee Cave, Lakeway, and Spicewood, Texas.

Staff

Pastor Drew Ingram
Pastor Drew graduated from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in May, 2016, and began his call at Spirit in the Hills in June, 2016.

A native of Austin, and lifetime member of St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Pastor Drew was first invited to consider the call to ministry during middle school confirmation by former Bishop Jim Bennett. As Drew moved through Bowie High School, he remained active at St. Martin’s, and later in college became heavily involved in campus ministry, and the Southwestern Texas Synod’s young adult ministry. Meanwhile, he earned a business honors degree from UT’s McCombs School of Business in three years. During his last year at UT Austin, he spent a semester abroad in Edinburgh, where he clearly discerned his call to professional ministry, while weighing careers as a Christian businessman versus an ordained pastor.

When he graduated from UT Austin in 2012, he immediately entered Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., another recommendation from former Bishop Bennett. Our former Pastor Liz Hanley served on his candidacy committee, providing both critical support and mentoring during his seminary years.

Pastor Drew served a year’s internship at St. Armands Key Lutheran Church in Sarasota, Florida, where his supervising pastor characterized Drew as “very gifted, self-motivated, smart, balanced, passionate for ministry, and entrepreneurial.” The theme among all of his references at former churches–from Austin to South Carolina to Florida–was wistful regret they were unable to call him themselves.

Pastor Drew plays the guitar, banjo, and mandolin, and strongly values a broad range of music to support ministry’s worship experience.

Drew met his wife Leigh, whose family lives in Pflugerville, while both worked as counselors at Camp Chrysalis in Kerrville. She was also active in Lutheran campus ministry at UT Austin, as well as the Southwestern Texas Synod’s young adult ministry. She graduated from UT Austin in 2013, and is an elementary school teacher. They married in June 2013.

Music Director Jackquie Tomhave
After 50 years as a church musician, Jacquie Tomhave retired in 2007. She had played for churches since she was 14, and the part-time gigs had first served to pay for her college teaching degree at San Diego State University, then supplemented her teacher salary. In the end, sacred music became an irrepressible avocation.

By day she taught biology or counseled students. But on the weekends, she brought churches alive with music. She eventually married and moved often to follow her husband’s job. Their family grew to four children and eventually, added four grandchildren. All the while, the spirit that moved her nimble fingers on the keyboard, and fed her gift for rhythm and melody, inspired congregations from California to Illinois, Arizona and finally to Texas.

“Music has always been the best way for me to express my faith,” she says. Nevertheless, she thought 50 years was a good stopping point. She would sing from the pew now, next to her husband.

Then she got a desperate message from an unfamiliar small town—Spicewood–30 miles away. “It’s a funny thing. I didn’t even think about saying no. It seemed like they were in a bind, so I’d planned to help out for a few weeks. That was in 2008.”

Her goal is to encourage as many people to become involved in the music as possible. She offers variety to allow people of all backgrounds to feel at home.

“Each week I spend a lot of quiet time with the next Sunday’s music to determine what it will express,” she says. “I want it to create a closeness to God, and the more people I can involve in that, the better.”

Administrative Assistant Lynette Lawson
Lynette comes to Spirit in the Hills Lutheran Church after retiring in early 2016 from a successful 34-year career in Marketing Communications at 3M in Austin, TX. While at 3M, Lynette handled advertising and merchandising programs for three different divisions of 3M, specializing in executing trade show marketing, training seminar administration, distributor and end-user product promotions, and print and digital advertising campaigns.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Lynette grew up as a military brat bouncing around between Texas, England, Montana, and Washington, before finally settling in San Antonio. She attended Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State) in San Marcos, TX majoring in Business Administration. She also completed a Trade Show Marketing certification program through San Francisco State University.

Lynette is happily married to her husband of 32 years, Charles, and has two grown children, Shawn and Shelby. Lynette lived in the Lake Travis area for over 25 years before moving to her retirement home on the shores of Lake Buchanan in 2013.

An avid sports fan and passionate animal enthusiast, Lynette enjoys spending time with family and friends, watching college sports, attending hunter/jumper horse shows and taking care of her two rescue fur babies, Lacie and Millie.